TWO YEARS LATER: FOLLOWING UP; Moving On, From Park Slope to Staten Island

Aidan Fontana is 7 now. His father, Dave Fontana, was one of 12 firefighters lost on Sept. 11 from Squad 1, the elite fire company in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Since February, Aidan has grown two inches and gained 20 pounds. His frame can almost be described as strapping, as his father's was.

Marian Fontana, Aidan's mother, is still a funny, wash-and-wear woman in her prime. Her hair is sunnier now and the summer has brought a russet tone to her skin, but she is still the same Marian from college, from the stage, from the rallies, from Park Slope.

She and Aidan now live in a carriage house on Staten Island.

This is how Year Two unfolded for them. One day, as Year One drew to a close, Ms. Fontana felt a wave of guilt. She had been leaving Aidan with family and friends while she worked long hours as president of the 9-11 Widows' and Victims' Families Association, the group she founded in the foggy days just after the attack.

Her mother called to say there was a house for sale around the corner from her in Livingston on Staten Island. Ms. Fontana, 37, said she wasn't moving. But she agreed to take a look.

When she crossed the threshold of the two-story house, she felt as if she had just stepped into the home that Dave, her husband, had always dreamed of: it had exposed beams and a 144-year history, and it was on a wooded lot. She walked through in wonder. An artist had lived there and had even built a studio, and Dave had been a sculptor. For the first time, she thought that maybe she could leave the small apartment in Park Slope where she saw his firehouse almost every day.

So this has been the year of nesting and the new home, where everything is different but the same. The rooms are new, but they are decorated with the same furniture that Dave once used. Living in car-friendly Staten Island, Ms. Fontana is becoming more of a suburban mom, but she is still a widow.

And she is still the influential activist for victims' families, whose phone calls are taken by politicians and whose presence at a rally can legitimize any cause. But she cut back on public appearances. At home, there was a backyard with a creek that needed exploring, a basement where runaway slaves had once been sheltered (''Dave would have loved that history,'' she said), and photos of Dave to be displayed in the new living room, just as they had been in the old. ''It's part of the package,'' she said. ''I'm not going to omit him from stories. It wouldn't be me.''

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Two years later, only 7 of the 29 firefighters and officers now at Squad 1 were working there on Sept. 11, 2001. But Dave's old friends still find their way to Staten Island to mow the lawn and refinish the hardwood floors. When Aidan had a tonsillectomy in February, four off-duty firefighters took him and Ms. Fontana to the hospital, and stayed trying to fill in as dad.

Just after Dave died, at age 38, Ms. Fontana's parents' dog, Vanilla, died. Aidan was bereft. So Ms. Fontana promised him he could have any pet he wanted. He chose, to her dismay, a gerbil -- and then a second one from the same litter.

Gerb and Gerbie became Aidan's new fascination. He carried them around like newborns. One day, Gerbie's leg became stuck in the wires of his cage and he hung upside down for what must have been hours. He was discovered gnawing at his leg in a fruitless effort to free himself. Aidan, hysterical, pleaded with his mother to save his pet. So Ms. Fontana found herself in a veterinarian's emergency room, staving off death with a $350 bill for a gerbil-size leg splint, antibiotics and the visit.

She is conscious now of being a single woman. She worries that eyebrows might be raised when married men work on her home, or drop in to make sure everything is all right. She tries to distance herself without offending them, but she wants them to go home to their own wives.

She was a writer before 9/11, and is now halfway through a memoir about losing her husband, to be published by Simon and Schuster. It is a writer's dream, though it makes her uneasy that it might appear she is capitalizing on her husband's death.